Archive for August, 2010

Story 9/10 – Both Gunbuster’s kinda follow one another. Though each season has a different set of characters and since technically the first season ended, the second one had a new beginning. They say it’s recommended to watch the first Gunbuster that came out in 1988, but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary. Though it would explain the ending of the second season of Gunbuster rather effectively. I have to say that it is inefficient for me to combine 1 and 2 together since I feel the story of the first season made more sense, had more of an overflow and was just ‘better’. As it goes, it’s in the early 21st century, insectoid organisms are invading the galaxy, searching for new stars to house their young. Mankind’s only defense lies with space cadets. The daughter of a celebrated admiral killed in battle, with their skill and the power of the mecha known as GunBuster, they must help fight to protect the galaxy from total annihilation. Sounds dramatic and intense right? Well that’s the overall story of the first season.

Now the second season is about Nono, a clumsy young girl living in the backwater countryside of Mars, dreams of becoming a space pilot. But when Nono witnesses a real space pilot called Topless, and her brutal fight with one of the invading space monsters, she discovers that it may not be so easy. With guts and effort her only recourse is to fight back against hordes of space monsters.

If you are familiar with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who are the makers of Gunbuster, it has the same plot. The universe is in danger and the people of the milky way galaxy on a planet called Earth save it…..in a very HUGE battle that breaks the laws of physics and reality. Now I feel I’m giving this show a little more credit than it’s worth. 9 is pretty much saying it’s good, but it’s very original and ridiculous. But coming from the late 80’s so it’s creative in its own way.

Characters 9.5/10 – The story isn’t anything new, but the characters were. In the first season, the daughter/main character and her “rival/ally” was commendable. What is nice about the first season of Gunbuster is they explain and thoroughly detail the difficulty, hardship, and work that is involved in dealing with a mech. I truly enjoyed the characters as they felt…real? They were mature, held responsible for the safety of the galaxy, but yet childish since they were still teenagers.

Animation 9/10 – The first most important detail to take here is that the first season was released in 1988, the same time as Akira, which was a movie. They both have a huge resemblance to each other, that’s how superb Gunbuster was. Sure it’s not like today’s, but if it is a problem such as it’s too ‘old’ then I would encourage to throw those feelings out the window for this series. The second season was magnificent as well. Again, similar to Gurren Lagann, the explosions, action scenes, was well implemented. Part of enjoying both Gunbuster’s is the animation, nothing to disregard on that category. My only complaint would be the CGI. It just looked too CGI for it to look good, but thank god they didn’t use much of it.

Overall 9.25/10 – I started to watch the second season first since I dislike the old fashioned style of anime of the 80’s to the mid 90’s. I was warned to watch the first season first and I decided to give it a shot. Boy was I glad I did. The first season was magnificent and only made the second season much better to enjoy. This is one of the few shows that takes the imagination of space to a new level. The first Gunbuster strongly reflected on the concept of space travel and it’s effect on time. Very fun stuff, the second season was strong on the human ability to colonize and travel around the solar system. As a huge fan of astronomy and the idea of space travel, it all just added to the enjoyment of the show for me. Now this show is pretty serious, barely no humor can be gathered from both Gunbuster’s, but at the same time it is RIDICULOUS! So just a heads up. Laws will be broken and perhaps a few “pfff’s” or “yea right’s” will happen. I can’t go much on about the series since their is only 12 episodes altogether, but ALOT does happen! Highly recommend.

Side note: This anime has 3 names in total: Aim for the top! and Diebuster are also the same anime.

There have been posts and videos about anime and what it would look like if it was real. We all know that it would be an ugly sight to see, which is the sad truth. This takes it onto a different approach. Wasn’t the best video and don’t expect it to be the funniest thing out there.

Story 7.0/10 – Everyone has problems may it be physical or supernatural. The story centers on Koyomi Araragi, a third year high school student who has recently survived a vampire attack, and finds himself mixed up with all kinds of apparitions; gods, ghosts, mythological beasts, and spirits. The series tends to introduce only one new heroine per chapter, each involved with a different “apparition”. Most of them have an item which symbolises their spectres, such as Hitagi’s stapler – the claw of a crab, Mayoi’s back pack – the shell of a snail. The events of the previous chapters play an important role in the subsequent ones. The series primarily focuses on conversations between characters and it contains a fair number of parodies of other series. What does it all mean? Well it felt rushed and original. Something like The Simpsons, each episode follows a short story and has no relevance to the previous episode. Perhaps that is a tad overkill as each episode has some sort of involvement from the last, but kept at a minimum.

Animation 9.5/10 – This show is known for its animation. Not gonna lie, it’s awesome. It tries to be simple yet complicated keeping the visuals beautiful without looking too cheap. What got me off, which had too much of it unfortunately are these brightly, random, annoying pauses that have somewhat important text’s that are so short, you miss out on what it’s saying 80% of the time. Other than that, the fights were top notch, intense, bloody, and gory. Loved the fight scenes, but only a few occurred.

Characters 7.0/10 – Each arc introduces a new character, but my main problem was that characters from previous arc are not featured enough, they appear moderately in the next arc but afterwards their appearances are just here and there and it leaves you wanting more. Each heroine is different from the last which keeps the anime fresh. One character I didn’t like particularly was Hitagi Senjogahara. She called herself a tsundere and always speaks in an abusive style. At the end of Mayoi Snail, she admits that she loves Koyomi, and subsequently enters into a relationship with him. This was all fine and dandy, but she was too stuck-up for me to enjoy her personality. She was cute and felt intelligent, but wasn’t enough to overcome her negative attitude in the show.

Overall 7/10 – The problems each character had kept me wanted more, the problem was the annoying pauses mentioned before that drew away from the show. If they hadn’t integrated that into the show, it would be one of my favorite series. Some of the episodes felt slow, such as, non-stop talking that doesn’t go anywhere. It had humor that gave a ‘chuckle’ here and there, a few twists that made me go ‘oh?’, and fight scenes that go ‘damn’. Is it worth checking into? It’s hard to say, but I’ll give some advice. Watch the first 2 episodes and if you don’t like it, chances are it’s not worth watching any more.

No information is given about the release date or what console it’s going to be on, but I do have an idea…

Most likely it will either be on the PSP or the DS. Everyone is hoping for it to be on the PS3, but chances are so low I wouldn’t even consider it. Also to the folks who live in America, I can surely predict it’s only going to be released in Japan.

There you have it people, awesome news only to be disappointed. Of course I could be wrong and I really hope I am. I REALLY do.

On August 9th 2010, Crystal Castles came to the Ogden Theatre in Denver. We got there pretty early as we both waltzed right in with no line in sight. It was fairly empty when we first walked in. Destructo was there and it sounded pretty good. It’s unfortunate that he had a small crowd and the fact no one was in the ‘zone’ to go insane so early in the evening. Though he was up on the stage for 2 hours and my friend and I were wondering when he was going to get off. Their is so much one person can handle from Destructo especially when they are eagerly waiting for the main event. I don’t remember the next DJ’s name when he came up after Destructo, but the music was on par. Everyone was in the mood by then and of course the crowd was bigger.

Oddly Crystal Castles was next. I was expecting them to be the last event of the concert. After the last DJ, it took 20-25 minutes to set up the stage for Crystal Castles.

When it began, it was epic. Definitely had punk feel to it as the lead singer would be rolling on the ground and be carried by the audience multiple times.

Thanks to my friend who not only introduced me to them, but took me to an awesome show!

That red square box is me!

Here is a music video of Celestica, one of my favorite songs done by Crystal Castles.

I saw a new figure of Hatsune Miku and I had no idea where exactly where it was from. By chance I ended up finding out by accident searching for a video on youtube. The latest version Vocaloid, Hatsune Miku Append ver is not just a figurine but a new software pack. An update over the Vocaloid 2, released by Cryptron Future Media INC, named “MIKU APPEND” that was released on April 30th of this year.

This software pack, give the Hatsune Miku, the face of the vocaloid line, more emotions like being happy, sad, dark or other basic emotions. With this, the feel of Miku’s sound will be further improved, and may sooth the critics main complain of the sound being too machine like.

One more pic to finish the job

I haven’t found any information on the figure if you wanted it in your home. As far as I know, it’s so fresh, pre-orders are yet to be announced. I will keep an eye out for a price and release date!